A Running List of the Women Allison Mack Attempted to Recruit to Nxivm

From left, by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic, by Ron Galella, LTD/WireImage, by Christopher Polk/Getty Images.

Pause your Wild Wild Country bingeing and look at the news, where so-called cult Nxivm has been making headlines for a week. Smallville actress Allison Mack was released on a $5 million bond on Tuesday after being indicted on sex-trafficking charges on Friday.

Since her arrest, stories have broken that Mack may have tried to recruit women including Emma Watson, Kelly Clarkson, and several feminist writers into a group that she referred to on Twitter as a “human development and women’s movement.” The group, however, was allegedly Nxivm, the upstate New York alleged sex cult run by a man named Keith Raniere, also known as “The Vanguard.”

Mack is denying the charges, and per Today, has issued a statement via a representative saying she has no comment at this time. Raniere was arrested in Mexico last month and has been charged with multiple accounts of sex trafficking and forced labor.

“As alleged, Keith Raniere displayed a disgusting abuse of power in his efforts to denigrate and manipulate women he considered his sex slaves,” F.B.I.’s New York Field Office Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said, per ABC News, at the time of Raniere’s arrest. “He allegedly participated in horrifying acts of branding and burning them, with the cooperation of other women operating within this unorthodox pyramid scheme. These serious crimes against humanity are not only shocking, but disconcerting to say the least, and we are putting an end to this torture today.”

As Vanity Fair wrote on Tuesday, Mack tweeted to Watson in early 2016 to try to recruit her to her group, saying that she thought Watson would be interested in “a unique human development & women’s movement.” She never replied.

Mack had tried this tactic before. In July 2013, she tweeted at Clarkson, saying that she knew the singer was a fan of Smallville. Clarkson never responded.

Samia Shoaib

The actress, who has appeared in The Sixth Sense and Requiem for a Dream,told Megyn Kelly on Thursday about her experience of Mack trying to recruit her into her “women’s group.” Kelly reported that the two actresses met at an audition in 2013, and Mack began to write to Shoaib, encouraging her to connect with Mack’s friend, who ran what she called a “school for introspection.”

In an interview with Kelly on Thursday, Shoaib said that Mack “love-bombed” her in an e-mail. She said that Mack would mirror everything she had to say in her exchanges, making it look as if she was interested in what she had to say. “We got close very quickly, and looking back, it was a very contrived effort, but at the time she seemed so sincere.”

She added that Mack told her that she “lived upstate in a communal situation” but didn’t add much more detail. She also said that Mack tried to help her with her drinking problem by offering for her to meet with a counselor, an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Shoaib also said that Mack met with her for dinner on one occasion and brought with her a woman that she says could have been India Oxenberg, granddaughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, who is reportedly Mack’s personal sex slave. After some time, their contact broke off.

Shoaib said that she has “no doubt” that Mack was trying to recruit her, though she never explicitly tried to do so. “I’m very supportive of young feminists; I was very heartened that this woman was looking to do something positive, so it was exactly the right button to push with me. I’m sort of angry that she used feminism for such nefarious ends.”

Beverley Mitchell

On Friday, Mitchell spoke with actress Christine Lakin on her podcast, The Worst Ever Podcast, and told the host that Mack contacted her to recruit her to a “self-help group.” She said Mack tried to get her to attend a seminar, which Mitchell understood to be an empowerment seminar for women. Mitchell said she told Mack it was not for her but she “gifted” the seminar to her friends, who did not attend.“First of all, I thought it was like an empowerment of women; I thought it was for someone who needed a confidence boost,” she said.

It looks like Mack wasn’t just reaching out to Hollywood or Hollywood-adjacent folks. She also reached out to women, particularly women writers, known for their feminist work. On Monday, Hess, The New York Times critic at large, retweeted a tweet that Mack sent her in September 2013. In the tweet, Mack asked Hess to “chat sometime.”

She also apparently got an e-mail from Mack, who was trying to reach someone named Claire.

Mack also reached out to writer Jill Filipovic, who, in a tweet, shared a screenshot of a February 2014 e-mail with the subject “Twitter lovin’.” In it, Mack asked Filipovic to meet with her about “a truly groundbreaking workshop” and linked to JNess, which is the women’s group that Mack reportedly used to mask her involvement with Nxivm.

In what has become a very close circle of writers targeted by Mack, Pastiloff, a self-help writer and public speaker, tweeted to tell Filipovic to tell her she had received a similar e-mail. In a flattering e-mail, Mack called her women’s group “the most effective thing she has ever come across” and asked Pastiloff to come to a workshop. She signed the letter “sleep well.” Pastiloff did not say whether she responded.

Baker, a Buzzfeed reporter, also tweeted that Mack tweeted to her in 2014 about “an awesome educational model” and tried to recruit her. She suggested meeting Baker for a “virtual coffee date.” Baker ignored it. In a tweet to Hess, Baker said that Mack addressed her as “Ingrid” when she first reached out. Baker did not respond.

Writer and activist Tagouri tweeted an entire thread about how Mack reached out to her “years ago” when she was in college. She, like Shoaib, seemed to have more contact with Mack than many of the other women she reached out to. Tagouri said that the two connected on Twitter and “would talk on Skype.” She said she was unsettled by the fact that the women’s group of which Mack spoke was led by Raniere, a man. She was going to meet Mack in New York but said she decided against it.

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